Livingstone is in great perplexity what to do. At the rate at which his ship is going it would take him fifteen days to reach Bombay, being one day before the breaking of the monsoon, which would be running it too close to danger. He thinks of going to Aden, but that would require him to go first to Maculla for water and provisions. When he tries Aden the wind is against him; so he turns the ship's head to Bombay, though he has water enough for but ten or twelve days on short allowance. "May the Almighty be gracious to us all and help us!"
His Journal is a curious combination of nautical observations and reflections on Africa and his work. We seem to hear him pacing his little deck, and thinking aloud:
"The idea of a colony in Africa, as the term colony is usually understood cannot be entertained. English races cannot compete in manual labor of any kind with the natives, but they can take a leading part in managing the land, improving the quality, in creating the quantity and extending the varieties of the productions of the soil; and by taking a lead, too, in trade, and in all public matters, the Englishman would be an unmixed advantage to every one below and around him, for he would fill a place which is now practically vacant.
"It is difficult to convey an idea of the country; it is so different from all preconceived notions. The country in many parts rises up to plateaus, slopes up to which are diversified by valleys lined with trees; or here and there rocky bluffs jut out; the plateaus themselves are open prairies covered with grass dotted over with trees, and watered by numerous streams. Nor are they absolutely flat, their surface is varied by picturesque undulations. Deep gorges and ravines leading down to the lower levels offer special beauties, and landscapes from the edges of the higher plateaus are in their way unequaled. Thence the winding of the Shiré may be followed like a silver thread or broad lake with its dark mountain mass behind.
"I think that the Oxford and Cambridge missionaries have treated me badly in trying to make me the scapegoat of their own blunders and inefficiency.... But I shall try equitably and gently to make allowances for human weakness, though that weakness has caused me much suffering."
On 28th May they had something like a foretaste of the breaking of the monsoon, though happily that event did not yet take place. "At noon a dense cloud came down on us from E. and N.E., and blew a furious gale; tore sails; the ship, as is her wont, rolled broadside into it, and nearly rolled quite over. Everything was hurled hither and thither. It lasted half an hour, then passed with a little rain. It was terrible while it lasted. We had calm after it, and sky brightened up. Thank God for his goodness."
In June there was more wind, but a peculiarity in the construction of the ship impeded her progress through the water. It was still very tedious and trying. Livingstone seems to have been reading books that would take his attention off the very trying weather.
"Lord Ravensworth has been trying for twenty years to reader the lines in Horace--
'Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo
Dulce loquentem.'
And after every conceivable variety of form this is the best:
'The softly speaking Lalage,
The softly smiling still for me.'
Pity he had nothing better to engage his powers, for instance the translating of the Bible into one of the languages of the world."